A wearable robot for a paraplegic patient serves to assist the patient who cannot use their lower body in walking. When such a robot performs a sitting motion, the sitting motion is a predetermined motion. However, because the height of a sitting target object may change in various situations, there is a risk of the robot performing an unstable motion, which makes it unlikely to secure the safety of a wearer.
The wearable robot is generally controlled, for example, to assist walking by measuring the distance between the soles and the ground surface, or to issue a warning or to be limited in driving by measuring the distance to an external object when the robot moves.
However, a concept in which, in order to control the case where the wearer attempts to sit, any object behind the robot is accurately detected such that the robot is automatically controlled based on the result of detection, has not been proposed. Such a concept would thereby realize a stable sitting mode under various situations in which the robot maintains the balance thereof so as to secure the safety of the user.
Therefore, with regard to the lower body supporting robot described above, there is a demand for the development of a technology that detects an object behind the robot, and allows the robot to accurately and stably perform a sitting motion based on the result of the detection.
The matters disclosed in this section are merely for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the disclosure and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that the matters form the related art already known to a person skilled in the art.